Weekend Preview: JWTC

Welcome to another entry in our Weekend Preview series. Today, ill preview this coming weekend in which i will be competing in the Junior World Team Challenge tournament in Las Vegas. This tournament marks the begining of the "summer swing" of tournaments. I like to think of the summer swing as all the tournaments we travel to during the summer, including Junior Gold, Las Vegas Open, TPC, and the Desert Open. JWTC is the first tournament in the summer that we travel to, so hence it is the first stop in the summer swing.

So ill start by saying i look forward to this tournament every year. It is the one time a year where you put your best 5 against others best 5. No restrictions based on school, county, or even state. There are some really really good bowlers on even better teams, which makes winning this tournament even tougher.

My team includes Marshall Kent, Tyler Cruz, Jordan Yoke, and Kyle Berry. We are also the defending champion, with Jordan Plunkett instead of Kyle. Last year, we qualified fifth for stepladder finals and were able to win the war of attrition and climb to the top. To be honest, none of us had any confidence in ourselves to do that. I dont think any of us had experienced anything quite like that before that. On top of the team event, Plunkett and I were able to capture the doubles event, and i won one of the sweeper squads. And with the sponsors, i bagged myself three brand new storm/roto grip balls for my efforts. (There is a rule change, now you can only win 1 ball from each sponsor.)

Its great going in as defending team champion. However, i feel like there is a little added pressure that comes with that title. I dont feel like it will effect any of us, but we are a bunch of hotheads. We will just need to focus on the task at hand.

As for the tournament itself, a quick run down. Sweepers on thursday, doubles on friday, and the team event on saturday with semis saturday afternoon and sunday morning. Finals are immediatly after semis on Sunday. Team qualifying is 5 REGULAR games and 5 two-game baker sets. Semis are two-game baker matches bowling every team once and a position round. With this type of format, lanes will get TORCHED by the baker. If you look at the scores, team will shoot a 230, then a 160. Thats how tough they get. This is the tournament where practicing ball return will pay off.

Overall, i like our chances. As a team, we have great chemistry and that goes a long way in these types of formats. We all kind of feed off of each other. We are all good spare shooters as well. This is key. in the stepladder last year, every team we bowled missed a spare in their game and that gave us enough opening to squeak by.

One thing ill note before i finish the entry. Ive been going back and forth about what balls to bring. Flying kind of restricts me to 6. I always bring plastic so really i can only bring 5. So right now, ive got the four i recently picked up, so really i going between the 718a and the midnight vibe. I know what the lanes are going to be, and the midnight vibe works well, but my recently drilled Aftermath Pearl can handle dry quite well. So i think im going to leave my midnight vibe home. I have a small feeling i might regret this, but at the same time there might be a time where i would say "well, i shouldve brought so n so instead of my vibe." so this is what im bringing:

715T
505T
718A
HyRoad
Aftermath Pearl
Tzone

I have confidence this lineup will serve me well not only this weekend, but at JG and the other major tournaments.

Id also like to continually thank all our regular readers. We've been getting more and more comments and they have been overwhelmingly positive. This is why we do this, for you, the reader. Thanks again and have a good weekend.

-Cameron
"Let's boogie!"